WATER MANAGEMENT
APINYA WIPATAYOTIN
Half of the fertile wetlands in the Northeast are at risk of destruction by a mega water management project that the government is implementing, environmentalists have warned. Hannarong Yaowaloes, a member of the National Wetlands Committee, said yesterday the water diversion projects and the dredging of more waterways and the expansion of irrigation canals poses a serious threat to these wetlands.
''The Northeast region is home to 23 of the country's 109 wetlands,'' he said.
Many of the wetlands have already been destroyed because state agencies in charge of the projects did not realise the ecological importance of these swamps, said the conservationist.
Some agencies even built irrigation canals on the wetlands or transformed the marshes to make them serve as reservoirs.
The importance of wetlands lies in their unique ecological value as they serve as breeding grounds and habitats of many aquatic animals.
He said 30,000 rai of wetlands were lost with the construction of the Rasi Salai dam in Si Sa Ket province.
Mr Hannarong also expressed his concern over the water diversion plan from the Nonghankumphawapi retention pond in Udon Thani to Lampao dam in Kalasin province.
The project is part of the Samak Sundaravej government's multi-billion-baht water diversion scheme to alleviate a water shortage in the northeastern region.
Nonghankumphawapi has been recognised as a wetland of international importance.
''To safeguard these wetlands, all such projects in the area should be required to conduct environmental impact studies so that proper steps could be taken to cushion any negative impacts on the wetlands,'' Mr Hannarong said.
He said the government's 15-billion-baht scheme to dredge and expand over 6,000 rivers and canals countrywide would do more harm than good to natural water resources.
As the characteristics of waterways were not the same, he said and using heavy machinery to dredge or expand rivers and canals would destroy their unique ecological system.
In another development, wetland specialist Sansanee Choowaew, of Mahidol University's faculty of environment and resource studies, was named co-winner of this year's Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award, together with wetland experts from England and Switzerland.
She is the first person in the country to receive the prestigious award and started her career back in 1992.
A key figure in the setting up of a curriculum for sustainable development of shoreline wetlands, she is also a founder of the Asian Wetlands Network which has members from over 30 countries.
The award presentation ceremony will be held in South Korea in October.
A total of 11 wetlands in the country have been designated as wetlands of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
This year, the government plans to propose four more wetlands_Kudting in Nongkhai, Bung Boraphet in Nakhon Sawan, Ko Ka in Nakhon Si Thammarat, and Koh Prathong in Phangnga province_for Ramsar inclusion.
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